Her long-range goals include All-America honors and a chance to represent the United States in an Olympic capacity should women's soccer be recognized as an Olympic sport.

Short-range goals would be to keep improving and do her best to help UCF's nationally-ranked women's team (5-1-1) gain a berth in the NCAA playoffs.

Carter, a freshman from Seattle, Wash., has scored nine goals in the Knights' first seven games, including two, three-goal games. Her hat tricks came at the expense of Florida International and Alabama.

''All it is,'' Carter said, ''is numbers to me. It's important to the team, but not individually for me. It's a team effort. No one can do it by themselves.

''That's why our team is so successful, because we work as a team.''

Carter's goal-a-game average could attract All-American support by season's end. Michelle Akers, a sophomore midfielder, was the last freshman to earn those honors by leading her team in scoring with 14 goals.

Carter and Akers are two of four UCF starters who have crossed the country to play in the nationally-known Knights' program. Junior goalkeeper Amy Allman and junior defender Jenny Olesen are the others.

''I knew all of them from the different teams we were on from either high school or youth soccer,'' Carter said, explaining how she chose UCF.

''Amy Allman and I played on the same youth soccer team three years ago.'' Jim Rudy, who coaches both men's and women's soccer at UCF, learned about Carter and her Washington friends from Bill Szabo, who coaches youth soccer teams.

Carter admits Szabo's influence played a role in her decision. ''He said here I'd probably get better coaching,'' Carter said.

''He always was out there inspiring us to be successful, to keep a positive attitude even when things didn't work out the way they planned.''

When several grants-in-aid were offered to play for schools in the Northwest, Carter turned to Szabo for advice. He got her a ticket to fly to Orlando to visit UCF.

Carter said she and Szabo ''knew Michelle Akers had gone here to UCF, yet it still seemed like a distant school because you don't hear about Central Florida way up in Washington.''

But she ''liked it UCF better than any other schools or Rudy coaches that I had met or talked to.''

Rudy's first coaching goal was to prepare Carter for a different, more physical style of play than she learned in Washington.

''They're Rudy and assistant coach Bill Barker teaching me the difference between the soccer here and the soccer in the West. In the West, it's more tactical. Here it's more physical.

''I like tactical soccer because that's what I've been playing, but if I can fit both physical and tactical soccer in my play, then it will improve my play.''

''She can shoot, and she can run,'' Rudy said. ''Now if we can only teach her to head and tackle.''

''She's got a lot of talent for such a young player,'' Akers said. ''And with her speed and with her shot, she's going to get a lot of goals.

''She's a finesse player. She's got to work on getting beat up because people are going to start targeting her,'' Akers said. ''By the end of the season she's going to be pretty beat up. When playing anybody who is that good, the only way to stop them, is to beat them up.''

Carter noted the warning and has accepted Barker's advice to gain strength through weightlifting. She understands it will help her achieve her goals.

''My long term goal is to play on the Olympic team if they form one, and then my short term goal is just to keep improving,'' she said. ''It's a long ways away, but if we keep working at it, I think we have a good chance at the national championship.''